The room was a mess. The dresser was overturned, the chair was broken,
the closet had been dumped. Lorraine was lying face down on the unmade
bed, her head in her hands. She was naked, of course, and every few
moments I saw the tender flesh of her buttocks quiver as a sob racked
her.
She looked up at me.
She was more of a mess than the room was. Her lower lip was split and
bloody, her eyes were red from crying and she had the beginnings of a
neat shiner on her left eye. There were scratches on her breasts, and
the marks of punches here and there on her body.
"My God," I said. "What happened here?"
She shuddered. She looked pathetic, naked, bedraggled, battered.
"Riccio," she said in a hoarse voice.
"What did he do?"
She turned eyes wild with fear on me. "He's drunk," she whispered. "He
went into town last night and bought a bottle of whiskey, and he was up
half the night drinking it. He was drunk in the kitchen this morning,
and then just before lunch he finished the rest of the bottle." She
shivered. "The cook threw him out of the kitchen and told him to pack
up and clear out. Instead he came back here and waited for me. He was
here when I came in after lunch. He--he was angry with me. He said I
made him jealous. He--he beat me up."
She began to sob again. I stood above her, lifting her face, and saw
that her eye was rapidly swelling shut. He had really given her a
pasting.
"He wanted to make love after he finished hitting me," Lorraine went on
in a rasping whisper. "Of course I wouldn't. So then he threw himself
down on top of me and forced my legs apart and--and--" She buried her
face in the pillow, unable to go any further. Any thoughts of making
love to her myself had long since vanished from my mind. Lorraine
drew her legs up, huddling in a pitiful little fetal ball, sobbing
constantly at the outrage that had been done to her.
"Where is he now?" I asked.
"I don't know," she said in a hollow, muffled voice. "When he was
through--through _raping_ me, he went away. He said I should wait for
him here, that he'd come back in a little while and--and do it again.
But that was half an hour ago. I don't know where he is. But he's
dangerous, Al. He's dangerous when he's sober, and he isn't even sober
now."
"You mustn't stay here," I said. "Come on with me. I'll take you to
the Richardses, and then we'll catch this Riccio and see that he's put
away."
"No! I'm afraid to leave! If he comes back and finds I'm gone, he'll
kill me!"
"He won't touch you," I said. But Lorraine would not budge. She clung
to her pillow, shivering and sobbing, insisting that she was afraid to
leave. I scowled indecisively and finally made up my mind to leave her
here.
"I'll send someone to stay with you," I told her. "Don't worry about
Riccio. He won't touch you again."
I darted out quickly. My heart was racing. A drunken rapist was just
what a nudist colony needed least. All of my original suspicions about
Riccio were confirmed, now. I felt almost sick with anger at the
thought of what he had done to Lorraine, and of what he might be doing
at this very moment to--to _Joanie_, I thought, and the sudden wave of
alarm that swept through me told me that I had been only fooling myself
in the music room when I had persuaded myself I did not love her.
The thing to do now was to get back on campus and alert Dr. Richards
about what had happened. Then someone could be sent up to comfort
Lorraine while a posse of men hunted down Riccio. What would happen
after that, I didn't know. Dr. Richards might not want to risk phoning
the police, and might simply expel Riccio from the colony without
dragging in unwanted publicity. Well, that was his problem. The
important thing was to get the news to him that Riccio was marauding
somewhere on the colony grounds.